While she never spoke to me directly, her eyes constantly followed me. It wasn’t a glare or anything, but it was thoughtful and I didn’t like the attention.

That weekend I let Granny in on the news of my new job.

“Congratulations,” she cried, literally. “Finally some good luck has come your way! You deserve it.”

Yeah, except luck was called Borden, and I wasn’t sure I deserved the job. It wasn’t as though I had applied for it and had my fingers crossed.

Still.

It was paying my bills. I could afford groceries and my stomach was full. So it didn’t matter how I ended up with the job, the truth was it was worth having. I could endure Borden because, even if he was at times so annoying I wanted to smash his head into an ice block, he was tolerable too.

And it wasn’t like I was in a room with an ugly ogre either. My shallowness took advantage of his good looks and it eased the annoyance more times than I could count.

The second week went by.

Then the third.

Then the fourth.

Until the kiss at the end of the day was a robotic gesture that I did without thought or care. And dare I say I stopped holding my breath when my lips touched his cheek because his scent was nice and non-threatening.

I learned to discern Borden quickly being in that room with him for so many hours in the week. I sensed his moods and knew when he was angry or civil. During his civil moments, he let me have several breaks throughout the day. And during his angry fits, he’d fill up a bowl of pistachios on his desk and eat every single one of them while debating out loud who to fire. He’d trash the room with wrappers and half eaten food. Then he’d bring the poor employee in and intimidate them Borden-style, forcing me to watch.

I knew he drank water by the gallon and hated coffee.

“I can’t stand the smell of that shit,” he’d said once, motioning to the plastic cup of coffee on my desk. “It’s fucking beans, you know that?”

“Coffee beans, Mr Borden,” I icily replied.

“Beans are fucking beans, Emma.”

“Are you going to complain about it every single time I’m in here with my cup of coffee?”

“If the putrid smell of it reaches my nose, then yeah.”

I stopped drinking coffee in the office.

I knew that he was usually happy after a workout because he’d come to the office in the mornings with an extra oomph in his step, freshly showered with his gym bag over his shoulder. On one particular occasion, I’d stepped into the office in the morning ten minutes earlier and found him changing his top behind his desk, from a workout tee to a long sleeved sweater. Just before he’d thrown it on, he turned to me, watching me enter, and his blue eyes looked alive. I’d nearly had a heart attack at how huge he was. Tattoos took up almost every part of his muscular torso. He looked like a goddamn heavyweight boxer.

“See something you like?” was the first thing he cheekily asked.

I glared at him, red-faced and mortified, and hurried to my desk.

“I can change around you more often, if you’d like,” he added, his eyes drilled to the side of my face.

“That wouldn’t be very professional, now would it, Mr Borden?” I icily replied.

He chuckled, and I cringed at how obviously attracted I was to him. Needless to say, that was the last time I showed up early.

I knew that he only wore suits on days he made deals outside the office, and the one other place he frequented most was the port to look over the books. He liked to read the news on his computer. He bought me a sandwich for lunch on the days he was office-bound and never asked me what I wanted because he knew already – and I hated how expectant I’d become of these deliveries from him, or the fact I liked it.

I knew many things, but the one that got me the most was knowing that even when he was out of the office – no matter how occupied he might be – he would come back even minutes before I was due to leave and sit down at his desk and wait for his goodbye kiss. That he would watch me sometimes when he didn’t think I knew, and his gaze was so penetrating, I thought I could physically feel the heat of it.

It was a weird feeling knowing I was being watched and pretending I didn’t. Sometimes my heart squeezed and my stomach twisted, but not angrily. It was like a rush shot up in my veins that I was somehow fascinating enough to be observed by someone like him.

Yes, he was a criminal. Yes, he was a rage case lunatic. Yes, he made my skin crawl when I thought about the rumours that people spoke of him. But being around him was an entirely different thing, I discovered. With the expectant kisses at the end of the day, and his watchful gaze, and the irritating conversations he’d sometimes have with me, the combination of them all solidified my ease in his presence.

Marcus Borden no longer frightened me because Marcus Borden liked me.

Seventeen

Emma

“We have this horribly shitty replacement,” said Blythe on the other end of the phone. “I swear, I want to bitch slap her fifty times a day. I can’t believe Denny the Dick fired you like that all those weeks ago! I wish you’d come back because I’m sure he’d give you back your position with the way things are going and they are not going well.”

I brought the covers over me as I rested back on the couch. The chill in the air was abominable.

“I wouldn’t go back if he offered me all the gold in the world. Besides, I really need a better paying job, Blythe,” I told her. “I’m sorry you’re stuck with a useless person.”

“Yeah, I’d have done the same. How is your job anyway?”

“Yeah, it’s good. Everyone keeps to themselves.”

“But what’s it like working for Borden? Isn’t he scary as hell?”

I smiled reminiscently. “He is beyond scary as hell when he wants to be. But he’s also… normal.” That word was still weird on my tongue. Normal. Nor-mal.

“How’s his business going?”

I let out a breath. “Crazy, Blythe. The man makes so much money at Owls alone. I checked out the books for the other businesses, and it’s unbelievable. The man should write a book about turning profit.”

“Is he at the club a lot?”

“Yeah, always. That’s where he bases himself. Owls was his first place of business, so I imagine that’s where he feels the most comfortable working.”